Pa­rade in town and cer­e­mony in He­len to mark Vet­er­ans Day

An an­nual pair of com­mu­nity Vet­er­ans Day ob­ser­vances in St. Mary’s will be on full dis­play again this Sun­day, Nov. 11, be­gin­ning with a morn­ing pa­rade through Leonard­town, and con­tin­u­ing with an af­ter­noon gath­er­ing in He­len.

This year, Leonard­town will rec­og­nize the 100th an­niver­sary of the end of World War I, and a ma­jor turn­ing point in the Viet­nam War that oc­curred 50 years ago.

The vet­er­ans mon­u­ment in He­len re­cently un­der­went ma­jor im­prove­ments that will be rec­og­nized at this week­end’s event, along with a tra­di­tion of fol­low­ing the brief cer­e­mo­nial pro­gram with live mu­sic and scalded oys­ters.

Leonard­town’s 43rd an­nual Vet­er­ans Day pa­rade will be­gin at 10 a.m., to be fol­lowed by a memo­rial cer­e­mony, and the guest speak­ers for the two spe­cial an­niver­saries will in­clude Ani­bal Del­gado, a Great Mills High School his­tory teacher and World War I his­to­rian, and J. Ernest Bell II, a U.S. Marine Corps Viet­nam War vet­eran and lo­cal his­to­rian who is sched­uled to speak about the 50th an­niver­sary of the Tet Of­fen­sive.

In ad­di­tion to the waves of color guards, march­ing bands, first re­spon­ders, dec­o­rated ve­hi­cles and pub­lic of­fi­cials lin­ing up each year for the pa­rade route on Fen­wick Street, be­gin­ning at St. Mary’s Ryken High School, Leonard­town’s ob­ser­vances con­tin­u­ally have fo­cused on the peo­ple who served in wartime, par­tic­u­larly those whose names are listed on the memo­ri­als in the town square, be­gin­ning with the first world­wide war from a cen­tury ago.

“We have fam­ily mem­bers, de­scen­dants, who are at­tend­ing to honor their loved ones,” Brandy Black­stone, the town’s pub­lic re­la­tions and events co­or­di­na­tor, said this week.

Ear­lier that morn­ing, vis­i­tors can get in­for­ma­tion at the town’s square on pro­grams for vet­er­ans and ac­tive-duty mil­i­tary mem­bers from rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Va­ca­tions for Vets of St. Mary’s County, Dis­abled Amer­i­can Vet­er­ans, Warfighter Ad­vance, Patux­ent River De­tach­ment 1305 of the Marine Corps League and the 29th In­fantry Divi­sion sta­tioned at Naval Air Sta­tion Patux­ent River.

In the event of in­clement weather, the pa­rade will be can­celed, and the memo­rial cer­e­mony will be held on the sec­ond floor of Town Hall on Wash­ing­ton Street.

Help­ing peo­ple park in and around Leonard­town and get to the pa­rade also is part of Vet­er­ans Day, and Black­stone said a free shut­tle ser­vice once again will be of­fered from the St. Mary’s fair­grounds, lo­cated off Route 5 south of town, and from the St. Mary’s gov­ern­men­tal cen­ter off Route 245, specif­i­cally at the bus stop lo­cated near the flag­poles be­tween the Carter state of­fice build­ing and the Po­tomac Build­ing. Wheel­chair-ac­ces­si­ble shut­tles will be avail­able at both lo­ca­tions.

The park­ing lot next to the down­town court­house on Court­house Drive is re­served for school buses and shut­tles. Wash­ing­ton Street and Fen­wick Street lead­ing into down­town will be closed to traf­fic from 8 a.m. un­til noon, and down­town park­ing and through traf­fic will be lim­ited to areas ac­ces­si­ble from Lawrence Av­enue. Spec­ta­tors re­quir­ing hand­i­capped park­ing may take Wash­ing­ton Street to a des­ig­nated pub­lic lot.

For more in­for­ma­tion, call 301-475-9791 or 301475-4200, ext. *1342.

The Vet­er­ans of He­len’s 33rd An­nual Vet­eran’s Day Ob­ser­vance Pro­gram will take place at 2 p.m. Sun­day, at the mon­u­ment site near the in­ter­sec­tion of routes 5 and 238.

The com­mu­nity-ori­ented pro­gram, serv­ing as a pa­tri­otic trib­ute in honor all who have served in the armed forces of the United States, is open to ev­ery­one, and Larry D. Hill, the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s pres­i­dent and event co­or­di­na­tor, said this week that Sun­day’s event will in­clude thanks to the con­trac­tors and other con­trib­u­tors who made pos­si­ble the re­cent up­grade and ex­pan­sion of the mon­u­ment.

“We want to rec­og­nize some of the main peo­ple that made that hap­pen,” Hill said, in part with a cake de­pict­ing the site’s ap­pear­ance in 1985, the orig­i­nal mon­u­ment and the new im­prove­ments.

Two more stone mark­ers still are needed to join the orig­i­nal pair, he noted, in that “we’ve just about run out of space on the stones that we en­grave the names of the vet­er­ans on.”

For more in­for­ma­tion about the two events, go on­line to www.mcw­prowrestling.com.

Dance Sat­ur­day at Chap­tico church hall

Swing, prom­e­nade, and do-si-do to lively jigs, reels and waltzes at a con­tra dance to be held this Sat­ur­day, Nov. 10, at Christ Epis­co­pal Church’s parish hall in Chap­tico. The South­ern Mary­land Open Band will be play­ing live acous­tic string mu­sic, and caller Kim Forry will teach and call the dances. A be­gin­ners dance work­shop, with no part­ner re­quired, will start at 7 p.m., and the dance will be­gin at 7:30. There will be an ice cream so­cial dur­ing an in­ter­mis­sion.

For direc­tions and more in­for­ma­tion, go on­line to www.smtmd.org.

Pet adop­tion blitz con­tin­ues through Sun­day at stores

Tens of thou­sands of home­less pets are trav­el­ing to nearly all of the 1,600 PetS­mart stores across North Amer­ica for PetS­mart Char­i­ties’ Na­tional Adop­tion Week­end, con­tin­u­ing this Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, Nov. 10 and 11, in­clud­ing the St. Mary’s lo­ca­tion at 45315 Al­ton Lane in Cal­i­for­nia.

Four times a year, PetS­mart Char­i­ties in­vites more than 3,500 an­i­mal wel­fare part­ners to bring adopt­able pets to nearly ev­ery PetS­mart store across the con­ti­nent. This week­end’s adop­tion blitz presents an ideal time to give a pet the best gift of all, a life­long and lov­ing home.

The stores are open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sat­ur­day, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sun­day.

Poster win­ners to be an­nounced Nov. 10

The win­ners of the Li­ons Club Peace Poster con­test will be an­nounced and prizes awarded at an artists re­cep­tion on Sat­ur­day, Nov. 10, start­ing at 3 p.m. at the Lex­ing­ton Park li­brary. This year’s theme was “Kind­ness Mat­ters,” and stu­dents ages 11, 12 and 13 cre­ated posters to re­flect their in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the theme. Win­ning posters the lo­cal com­pe­ti­tion will be for­warded to the next level of com­pe­ti­tion in the Li­ons Club con­test. The pub­lic is wel­comed to join for this cer­e­mony and cel­e­brate the ac­com­plish­ments of the young artists.

Bells to toll in re­mem­brance

The bells at St. Cle­ment’s Is­land Mu­seum and Piney Point Light­house Mu­seum will toll on Nov. 11, at 11 a.m. in honor of the 116,516 Amer­i­cans, in­clud­ing the 27 St. Mary’s County na­tives, who died in World War I..

Cit­i­zens are in­vited to toll bells in their com­mu­ni­ties 21 times on Sun­day at 11 a.m., ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from county gov­ern­ment. For more, visit www.ww1cc.org/memo­rial.